Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 424, February 1851

And it has felt the consequences. Of all the kingdoms of this world, since the fall of Rome, the Popedom has been the most marked by calamity. There has been no nation whose sovereign has been so often flung from his throne; whose throne has been so often contested with bloody dissension, whose sovereign has been so often a prisoner in foreign lands, whose capital has been so often sacked, whose provinces have been so often in foreign possession, whose population is so miserable, and whose vassalage has been so palpable, so humiliating, and so wretched.

But need we look to the past, when we see the Papacy at this hour? Need we dig up ancient fields of battle, to see how often its armies have been buried; or dive into its dungeons, to see how many centuries of fetters are recorded there against its presumption? Need we break up its tombs to see its shattered crosiers and tarnished tiaras, when we see the living figure that sits in mock majesty in the Vatican, with a French garrison in the Castle of St Angelo?

But the Papist demands religious liberty. The words, in Papist lips, are jargon. He has never had it in any country on earth. Has he it in Rome? Can the man have the absurdity to call himself a freeman, when the priest may tear the Bible out of his hand; when, without a license, he cannot look into the Book of Life? – when, with or without a license, he cannot exercise his own understanding upon its sacred truths, but must refuse even to think, except as the priest commands? – when, for daring to have an opinion on the most essential of all things – his own salvation – he is branded as a heretic; and when, for uttering that opinion, he is cast into the dungeon? – when the priest, with the Index Expurgatorius in his hand, may walk into his house, and strip it of every book displeasing to the caprices, insolence, and ignorance of a coterie of monks in the Vatican?

If the legitimate and noble boast of the Englishman is, that his house is his castle, what is the house of the Italian Papist, but his dungeon? If the Irish or the English Papist demands "Religious Liberty," let him demand it of his master the Pope. If the Papist desires it, let him break the Popish fetter, and emancipate himself. Till then, we must look upon his claim as lawlessness instead of liberty, and hypocrisy instead of religion.

But, before the Papist requires more than toleration, must he not show that at least he tolerates? If, in the Popish kingdoms of the Continent, fear or policy has produced some degree of Protestant toleration, what is the condition of Protestantism in the capital of Popery; and, in its most important point, freedom of worship? To this day, no English Protestant is suffered to worship within the walls of Rome.

The Americans, with a sense of national right, of which it is a scandal to England not to have adopted the example, have insisted on having a chapel – a solitary chapel! – in Rome; while the English have been forced to run from one lodging to another, to hide in holes and corners, and to exhibit to the Roman rabble the sight of Protestants sneaking to a worship indebted only to connivance for its being suffered to exist at all! From 1815, the year in which we gave liberty to the Pope, their worship was held only in private rooms for the ten following years, even to which the English were prohibited from going in carriages. They must go on foot! From 1826, the condition of their worship is thus stated on the authority of the chaplain: —

"In that year, the English congregation migrated to a granary outside the Flaminian Gate. In the upper part of this huge building, a space, large enough for a congregation, was hired. It was reduced into shape by lath and plaster; it had a ceiling of canvass to hide the rafters and cobwebs, and carpets laid over straw, for covering the mud floor. The rats and mice ran races over the canvass above the heads of the worshippers; the pigs, in great numbers, squealed in concert in the story below; and sometimes the donkeys, laden with sacks of corn, disputed the common staircase with the congregation. On one occasion, the competition was more serious. The first story of the building was hired for a menagerie, and on a Sunday morning we found the wild beasts in previous possession."

Can any vulgar display of intolerance exceed this humiliation? There is not a beggar in Rome who does not stand on tiptoe, at the sight of the English going to their barn. There is not a saucy priest, who does not turn up his nostrils at the sight. And yet the population live on the English expenditure. If the English were to leave Rome for a twelvemonth, half their population – a population of lodging-letters and valets – would starve. We certainly can feel no compassion for any degree of contempt which can be heaped on the English residents, who desert their own noble country for the coffee-house life of the Continent. The men who can abandon their duties to England (and what man is not without his duty?) for cheap wine, gossip, and grimace – the race of sullen selfishness and perpetual vacuity – are justly punished by foreign ill-usage. But still, the insult is to the religion of England, and it teaches us the real feeling of Popery in power. Let the Protestant ever suffer the predominance of Rome in England, and he will then only know what Popish power is in its nature, its fierce recollections, and its grasping ambition. In the mean time, let him look at the Protestants creeping through the "Flaminian Gate" to their Barn, outside the walls of Rome!

What right can those have, who so loudly proclaim themselves the spiritual subjects of the Papacy, to demand here what they refuse there? Are they to insist on privileges, where their condescension only amounts to pigsties? What would become of their levees and lectures here, if we laid them under the Roman rule, which sends "controversialists to jail?" Is it not the fact, that no Protestant can be buried within the walls of Rome; and that no inscription can be placed on a Protestant grave, without being subjected to the Roman Censor; who scratches his pen over every syllable referring to the hope of a Resurrection?

Those statements have been repeated in every public journal of the empire. Who has contradicted them? Have we not, then, a right to demand the liberty which we give? or, if refused by the dwarfed and beggarly sovereignty of Rome, ought we not to act with the insulted dignity of the first kingdom and truest religion of the world?

The great error of Protestants, in their legislation on Popish questions, is, to believe that the same rules of morality exist in the Church of England and in Popery. The pamphlet applies itself with full effect to the facts of the case, by giving the Papist oath, and contrasting it with the Papist performance.

"The essential items of the Papist oath of 1829 were – 'I do not believe that the Pope of Rome hath, or ought to have, any temporal or civil jurisdiction, power, superiority, or pre-eminence, directly or indirectly, within this realm. I disclaim, disavow, and solemnly abjure any intention to subvert the present Church Establishment, as settled by law within this realm; and I solemnly swear, that I never will exercise any privilege, to which I am or may be entitled, to disturb or weaken the Protestant religion or Protestant government in the United Kingdom.'"

What must be the contempt felt for all Popish promises, when we see this oath, and see the conduct of the Popish body ever since it was taken! "With what feelings," says Mr Warren, "any one who has taken this oath, can peruse and approve of the Bull of Pius IX. and the Pastoral of his pseudo-cardinal archbishop, and contemplate with satisfaction what has been recently done by him and others in professed conformity with that Bull, I am perfectly at a loss to conceive."

And in this honest difficulty of conception every true Protestant will coincide with him. But let us look to the natural result of this palpable callousness of conscience.

The sacredness of oaths is essential to the existence of society: the man who is not to be believed on his oath is self-banished, self-disfranchised, self-excluded from all the rights of society; for the obvious reason, that, if all men were equally false, society must dissolve. Such a man is no longer entitled to the protection of law. And the same rule is inevitably applicable to any institution which thus sets itself at war with society. Popery is anti-social. This sentiment is the substance of a letter by the late Bishop Watson; a man of a rough and almost republican spirit – a bold advocate for liberality, almost to the verge of Liberalism – and, though a vigorous arguer against Paine and his infidelity, yet as sturdy a disclaimer of all submission to prejudice as any radical orator of our day. We quote the pamphlet.

In a letter to the Duke of Rutland, in 1784, the Bishop says – "I particularly agree with you in relation to the (Roman) Catholics. No man on earth, I trust, can have more enlarged sentiments of toleration than I have. But the Church of Rome is a persecuting Church; and it is our interest and our duty, on every principle of religion and common sense, to guard ourselves against her machinations." He then gives the expression of the great Lord Clarendon – "It is the duty of Catholic subjects in a Protestant country, of priests as well as the laity, to abjure the Pope's supremacy, ecclesiastical as well as temporal."

The Popish advocates lay great weight on the patronage afforded to their parliamentary demands by the Cabinet of Pitt; who evidently made the grand mistake of supposing that spiritual dominion could be disunited from temporal – a mistake as great as supposing that the command of the limbs could be disunited from the power of the mind. But the views of the Minister were founded merely on political objects, while the true question was one of religion. The argument is thus summarily answered: —

"Let me remind you that an illustrious statesman, William Pitt, in the very last speech which he delivered in Parliament, expressed himself on the subject of Roman Catholic emancipation in the following remarkable language: – 'I never thought that it would have been wise to throw down rudely the guards and fences of the Constitution. But I did think, that if the system I alluded to had been adopted, it ought to have been accompanied by those checks and guards, and with every regulation which could have given respect and influence to the Established Church, to the support and protection of the Protestant interest, and to the encouragement of every measure which could tend to propagate the example of the Protestant religion.'

"His splendid pupil, Canning, the most ardent friend of Roman Catholic emancipation, also thus expressed himself: 'Go as far as you can, with safety to the Establishment. Do not exact from them terms that are unnecessary, but be rigorous in imposing such conditions as shall free you from all real, I had almost said all imaginary, danger.'"

These are important opinions, which should teach us how to act. We have seen those guards and fences broken down; we have seen every protective condition accepted, and finally scoffed at, and we are at this moment at once insulted and injured by the cool and contemptuous violation of every promise which was required for the safety of the Church – of Protestantism.

But the whole system of concession was founded on ignorance, carried on by faction, and suffered by infatuation. That unhappy concession is the only blot on the tomb of Pitt, who made it in ignorance: it is the chief among the many blots on the tomb of Canning, who made faction his auxiliary, by first sacrificing his Toryism; and it covers with the indelible contempt, due to the traffic of principle, the whole paltry and perfidious generation who, subsequently, under different garbs, but with the same physiognomy of worldliness, have droned and drivelled and died off in the shadow of the Treasury. What the majority of those men thought, is a subject too low for memory; what they did, is to be seen in the scars of the Constitution.

But when the mighty orb of Pitt undergoes an eclipse, it must be by a body of no slight magnitude. His wisdom was actually thwarted by his magnanimity. Himself the soul of honour, he evidently imagined that Popery was capable of honour.

"What would William Pitt, what would George Canning, say?" exclaims Mr Warren, "were they still alive to read the Bull of Pius IX. and Dr Wiseman's Pastoral? and what would they do?"

We think that we can answer the question. If Pitt denounced the grasping ambition of French republicanism, if Canning lashed the low absurdities of Radicalism, with what indignant justice would they not have stript and scourged an aggression which unites more than the ambition of the one, with more than the absurdity of the other! With what lofty vengeance would Pitt have trampled down the haughty usurpation which dared to degrade England into a province! and with what sarcastic ridicule would Canning have stung the bloated arrogance with which, from a palace almost a prison, an impudent monk dared to control the liberties of England!

But what would the Papal assumptions be, if uttered by any other sovereign? Let us suppose that Austria ventured to send a dozen of her monks here to carve the land into dioceses. What would be the universal exclamation, but that Austria was mad; and that the first monk who made the attempt should find his only diocese within the walls of Newgate. What if France declared England a province? Can we doubt that our answer would be a declaration of war? And is a beggarly Italian – a fugitive from his own territory, a priest flying for his life in the livery of a footman – to offer this insult with impunity? But if we are told that Pius IX. is a different personage from his predecessors, a Liberal, a man of the new school – tempted, by misrepresentations from his emissary monks here, to make a usurpation against his nature – let us hear the pamphlet: —

"Let us go to the fountain-head. Pope Pius IX., who, on his elevation to the supreme Episcopate, addressed an elaborate Encyclical Letter to 'all patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and bishops,' dated 9th of November 1846, and which, to the eyes of any person in whom exists a single spark of true protestant Christianity, appears surcharged with blasphemous presumption, falsehood, and bigotry."

In this document, the Pope solemnly and formally asserts his claim to be the Vicar of Christ on earth! declares that God has constituted the Pope a living authority to teach the true sense of his Heavenly revelations, and to judge infallibly (infallibili judicia) in all controversies on faith and morals, and that "out of the Catholic Church there is no salvation;" and he bitterly denounces our "most crafty Bible societies," (a denunciation simply against the Bible itself, for there are no notes of any kind in the Bibles thus published.)

In this letter, "the Pope will be found, in the year 1846, to use the essential terms of the Florentine Canon, which has been in force for four hundred and eleven years, and under whose sanction, consequently, have been perpetrated, by the Papal authority, all the enormous crimes and offences which history records against it during that long period."

Mr Warren then quotes, as illustrative of the Pope's assumed supremacy in temporals over the Papist everywhere, a conversation detailed in evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons. – 'I said to him, (a respectable Roman Catholic,) suppose the Pope and his Council announced that the King of England was a person who should be deposed – would you feel in conscience bound, as a Roman Catholic, to obey?' He answered, 'Certainly not, because it would be contrary to Scripture.' I asked whether he or his church was to judge of Scripture? He replied, 'His church.' I then asked, 'If the decree was so worded, that the Pope and Council affirmed it to be not contrary, but according to Scripture, that a heretical monarch should be deposed, how would you act?' He admitted, 'that he should feel himself bound by the decree, because it was for the Pope to judge of Scripture, and that, as a Roman Catholic, he should obey him.'

In this conversation we have a perfect specimen of Popish casuistry. The man is suffered to believe that he has a conscience, and that he is ever obedient to Scripture. But Popery still holds him fast, and if regicide should suit its purposes, he can give the blow with a safe conscience. What must be the religion when such is the morality?

And this view leads us to the true question on which the whole subject turns. In the eyes of the Tractarians, the controversy is simply between an old church and a new. In the apologies of the apostates, it is simply between Papal infallibility and private judgment. Thus, the whole is diluted into a mere metaphysical inquiry, while both suppress the entire practical reality of this tremendous superstition. In those tranquil subtleties and meek submissions they both labour to conceal the fact, that if they are to be Papists, they must be worshippers of the Virgin Mary; they must be worshippers of imaginary saints; they must be worshippers of stocks and stones, as the images of those imaginary saints; and they must be prepared to do the bidding of the Papacy, even though that should amount to the dissolution of society; for to this they must come. This is their yoke. To this every man who apostatises is bound for life: he must drag the whole length of the chain.

Strong curiosity is now excited by the approach of Parliament; and the inquiry into the measures contemplated by the Cabinet is intense. In the midst of the numberless conjectures hazarded at the moment, a letter from the Bishop of Durham to a body of his clergy has appeared; which, when we remember that the memorable letter of the Premier was addressed to the Bishop, and that a correspondence on the subject may have been continued, seems to throw a light on the Ministerial intentions, and probably has been written for the express purpose.

The Bishop, after observing that the question of religious liberty to the Roman Catholics could not possibly require "that a foreign potentate should be permitted to insult a great nation, trample on the rights of a sovereign secured by law, and disturb the peace and good order of the Established Church," proceeds to state his conception of the necessary measures of protection.

"In order to prevent such evils, it may be necessary to provide —

"Some restrictions upon the introduction and circulation of Papal Bulls in this island.

"To prohibit the assumption of Episcopal titles conferred by Rome, and deriving the name from any place in this country.

"It may also be desirable to forbid the existence of monastic institutions, strictly so called.

"Nor can the residence of any Jesuits appear otherwise than injurious among Scotch and English Protestants. This Order is well known to have shown itself so dangerous, that it was suppressed by Clement XIV., 1773, with the approbation of all wise and good men. What species or amount of merit may have brought them again into favour with Rome, I profess myself unable to determine. But I am sure you will agree with me that a body of men, whose principles and conduct have been so justly reprobated in (Roman) Catholic countries, cannot be looked upon as desirable neighbours among Protestants like ourselves.

"To some such measures as I have thus pointed out, it may in all probability be found necessary to resort; and they may not improperly be referred to in petitions presented to Parliament in the ensuing Session."

Of course it would be essential that, in the exclusion of Bulls, all documents asserting any similar authority over the Popish subjects of the realm, as "Apostolical Letters," "Rescript Ordinances," and, in short, every paper claiming a public right by the Pope to govern the Papists in England or Ireland, and in any portion of the British empire, should be distinctly comprehended. We must not suffer ourselves to be cheated by names. Similarly, it will not be enough to put down convents and monasteries, so called, but every institution in which Popish vows are taken, binding the rash and unfortunate people who take them, for life. Here, too, we must not be cheated by names. Similarly, we must put down not merely Jesuits, so called, but every Order of foreign monk-ism, let it hide itself under what name it will. Rome is all artifice, and we may be well assured that, whether under the name of Oratorians, or Preachers, or Brethren of the Spirit, the craft of Jesuitry will be exercised to make its way into England, and keep its footing here.

The Bishop's letter makes no direct reference to Ireland. But in Ireland there are two millions of Protestants; and if Protestantism is to be triumphant in England, it must be protected in Ireland. As to the right, the justice, and the necessity of those measures, and many more of the same kind, there can be no doubt on the mind of any rational being. Lords Beaumont, Norfolk, and Camoys, Roman Catholics, have openly stated that the operation of the Papal Bull, is incompatible with temporal allegiance to the Queen. The pamphlet from which we have quoted so largely, from a sense of its merits, disposes of the question in reference to the British Constitution; and the united feeling of the nation, which has already, in the purest spirit of Christian men, exclaimed "No Popery," must now, in the most determined spirit of Freemen, exclaim, "No Surrender!"

notes

1

The Emperor Diocletian.

2

The title of Excellency does not, in Italian, necessarily express any exalted rank; but is often given by servants to their masters.

3

"We have now lying before us both the printed and manuscript copy of the petition of a valued friend (the late Rev. W. Howells, of Long Acre) against the bill for granting to Roman Catholics the privilege of paralysing the hands and obstructing the labour of Protestant statesmen. At page 92, in the Memoirs of that eminent man, published by his friend and executor, Mr Bowdler, our readers will find that petition speaking with little less than prophetic voice of the confusion and misery certain to follow a measure which every Protestant, in proportion to the clearness of his views of Divine truth, must consider a downright infraction of his allegiance to his God.

"We quote three of the clauses in the petition alluded to, and we ask whether the fears therein expressed have not been fulfilled to the very letter: —

"'That the concession of the elective franchise has not only multiplied the crimes and aggravated the miseries of Ireland, but shaken likewise the very foundation of the glorious British constitution, the majority of Irish votes being virtually at the disposal of a demoralising, disloyal, turbulent, and traitorous priesthood.